Going Back in Time
This game doesn't feel like a followup to last year's blockbuster Modern Warfare 2. Actually it feels like a step back. Nothing in this game looks as polished as Modern Warfare 2, that includes the graphics, the sound and the campaign and multiplayer modes.
The worst offender is the graphics, which feel like a first-generation title. The sound while not terrible, it's way below the quality of Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the only shooter released in 2010 that's worth buying (and released very early in the year to give these developers time to catch up).
The multiplayer is recycled from other Call of Duty games, no way as polished as Modern Warfare 2. The maps, while varied in setting, all offer the same kind of strategy. The animation doesn't feel as fluid and the graphics, again, are an eyesore. A few tweaks make the multiplayer tolerable, as slowing down the infamous "n00b tube" and making the air support attacks less effective/annoying. These fixes could have been easily implemented in Modern Warfare 2 with a patch, but then, they're not making an extra $60 out of it. Other than the blah maps, the collision detection of the melee attacks seems a bit off. I think they will fix this eventually.
The story mode is there to waste your time. Silly enemy A.I., no real innovations from past titles, the flashback plot which is take-it-or-leave-it, plus the Cold-War setting isn't really that interesting and Hideo Kojima handled it much better before.
So the question is, why they keep dumping these games at all every year until they kill the franchise? Because you guys keep buying them. If you were happy with Modern Warfare 2 (which took its sweet-ass time to come out after Call of Duty: Modern Warfare) they would've spent more time developing another game until is done right. Right now, they know they can get away with a yearly update and charge you a mint. Who knows? They can go the way of Guitar Hero and release several Call of Duty titles a year? If it sells, why not?
I think the Editor's Choice of this title is the worst review on this site so far and will mislead a lot of people to waste their money on this franchise-killing game. Don't get me wrong, it's a fine action title, but absolutely not cream-of-the-crop. I'd given it a score over 8.5 if it came out in 2007.